University of Albany Targeted with DDoS Attacks

“Altogether, since February 5, there have been 17 separate instances where the volume of inbound internet traffic has exceeded the carrying capacity of our [internet service provider] for 5 minutes or longer,” said Martin Manjak, UAlbany’s chief information security officer.

By Jessica Davis

March 01, 2019

Information technology systems at University of Albany have been targeted with cyber-attacks. In the space of two weeks, UA systems experienced a total of 17 distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, with threats as recent as Feb. 19.

“Altogether, since February 5, there have been 17 separate instances where the volume of inbound internet traffic has exceeded the carrying capacity of our [internet service provider] for 5 minutes or longer,” said Martin Manjak, UAlbany’s chief information security officer.

DDoS attacks flood a network with malicious requests, disrupting the normal flow of data between servers and legitimate users attempting to connect.

These attacks have impacted the availability and functionality of several UA IT systems, particularly Blackboard. According to Manjak, neither the integrity nor confidentiality of university information has been compromised.

Manjak said he believes the attacks may be related. However, no one has claimed responsibility and no motivate has been identified.

“All we know is that the resource being targeted is Blackboard,” Manjak said.

Computers on UA’s network, like those in the library, were not affected by the DDoS attack. However, students and faculty using their own devices were unable to access Blackboard.

“We’re able to maintain access to electronic resources from on-campus through a combination of firewall and filtering rules,” Manjak said, “but access from off-campus was affected because the attacker(s) filled our internet pipe.”

Members of the UA community received two information security alert emails from Manjak about the attacks, one on Feb. 5 and the other on Feb. 18.

“Communication is sent to the University community when we identify an active threat that has the potential to impact the entire campus,” Manjak said.